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"When those automatically sent ballots are taken out of the 2008 numbers, and then compared to the 2012 numbers, we see in those states for which we have accurate data in both years that military and absentee ballot requests are actually increasing," he said.

Mr. Carey, who reached out to reporters after seeing news accounts of those figures, said that the comparison was "woefully misleading" because of an earlier federal law that made the number of absentee ballots requested appear larger in the 2008 presidential election.